Voices of the Dead
by Kika1
Summary: Schuldig is hearing Crawford talk to him in his head. Usually that wouldn't be a problem for the telepath... but Brad has been dead for months. Shounen ai.
1. Chapter 1

I hear voices in my head.

Ok, so maybe that's not so weird, seeing as how I'm a telepath and all. It can be a bit disconcerting, though, when you hear a voice that belongs to a person who has been dead for nearly a year.

I was drunk the first time it happened. I had overindulged a bit on the whiskey - something I can proudly say I've been doing less frequently than I had in those first few months after his death - when I heard it.

_Schuldig._

That was it. That was all he said, that first time, anyway. Just my name. I recognized his voice immediately; the voice, the accent, the mental feeling I got when he had spoken to me in my mind - that was something that could not be replicated. But even in my drunken stupor, something had pierced through the joy I had felt at hearing that voice say my name for the first time in months.

Even with seven shots of whiskey in me, I was painfully aware of the fact that Bradley Crawford was dead.

For weeks, I was constantly looking over my shoulder, as if I expected Brad to come walking into the room at any moment. But I knew - I _knew_ - that he was dead; I remembered how it had happened all too clearly. It was my fault. Of course, it had to have been; I am Schuldig, guilty. I now had one more death on my conscience, and this one weighed heavier on its own than the hundreds of others altogether.

The one person who cared enough about me to save me, the one person I had been able to bring myself to trust and love, even after the horrors of Rosenkreuz, the one person who had stepped in to save my ass more times than I could count - the one time he needed me, the one time he counted on me to be there, I had failed him. I had not been where he needed me, and he had died. The worst part was that he had warned me of this. He had told me up there on that windy rooftop as we waited for Weiss to approach that I would fight Geisel, and that he would face Berger. There was a tense pause before he added that he would need my assistance when I had defeated the Rosenkreuz lackey.

I had tried to get to him, I gave everything I had to try to find him. After Nagi helped me finish off that fire-breathing bastard, I had mentally searched for Brad. I could tell that he was only a few floors down, but he was fading in and out of consciousness so my idea of his location was fuzzy at best. I had to work to keep my panic at bay as I had searched through the seemingly endless rooms for him. When the building began trembling, on the verge of collapse, I had begun screaming his name, mentally and out loud, in hopes of rousing him, or at the very least alerting someone, maybe Nagi or Mamoru - the others probably wouldn't have helped me anyway - that he was missing.

I had just stepped into the doorway and seen his blood-covered form slumped against a wall when the building collapsed around me.

Flashback

I wake up and suck in a breath, only to immediately cough it out in a cloud of dust. I seem relatively unharmed, and quite sure that Nagi had something to do with that, seeing as how a building has just collapsed on my head.

Brad. . . he had been right there. I had seen him. Surely Nagi had. . . surely he wouldn't just. . .

"Excuse me, sir," a coldly formal voice speaks somewhere to my right. I sit up and turn my head on a stiff neck (lying on rubble for a while will do that to you) to see who is speaking. I instinctively scan the mind and am surprised to find some fragile shields guarding the woman's thoughts. My mental searching for Brad has exhausted my mind to the point that I decide it is not worth the effort to break through her shields.

"Who are you?" I demand, taking the more direct route.

"I am from Kritiker. We have been ordered by Mr. Takatori to spare you, at Mr. Naoe's request, I would assume. We must ask you to leave now, though." I detect a hint of an accent, but I cannot place it. Her dark hair and eyes suggest eastern Europe. I shake my head slightly and bring my mind back to task.

"Fine, but my leader, he is just over-"

"Mr. Crawford was killed, though whether it was from the collapse or from previous injuries, we do not yet know. His body has been removed, so you need not concern yourself"

I can't think, can't move, can hardly feel. Brad is dead. I had not gotten to him in time, and he is dead because of that. And this woman says I shouldn't concern myself?

"Can I. . . can I see him?" I manage to choke out. I want to see him. . . to touch his hand at least one last time. . . and perhaps I want to assure myself that he really is gone, that he isn't going to show up with that quiet amusement in his eyes and inform me that it was all a misunderstanding. The thought of Bradley Crawford being dead, gone forever. . . how is it possible?

"No, you cannot," the woman replies brusquely. "His body is being transported to a secure Kritiker facility. It is already gone." In a burst of anger, I let out a blast of telepathic power, specifically designed to search out Brad, searching for that spark of life, that mind that was always partially focused on the future, the mind that was the only one I could let my shields completely down for. . .

We had discovered in the past that I could communicate with him within 50 miles. I could detect his presence within 100. I feel nothing where the comforting presence of his mind should have been.

I jolted awake, knocking over a lamp and whacking my head against the arm of the couch in the process.

_Usually sleeping in a bed works better_, remarked a voice in my head dryly.

_Thanks Brad_, I replied sarcastically. _I've learned to take it where I can get it, though._ I could feel his mental presence sober immediately, and nearly withdraw before I sent out a silent plea to stay.

_Yes_, he said seriously. _You do have to take what respite you can get, don't you? You have a few more hours before the sun rises_, he continued in an almost gentle tone. _Go on to bed. I'll stick around._

I felt relief wash over me as I headed to bed as directed. I always slept better with his presence in my mind. It had been two months since I had begun hearing his voice again, and it was now an everyday occurrence, though he did withdraw completely from my mind at times, sometimes for days at a time. What he did during those times, I never asked. I was afraid of the answer. I did not ask where he was even when he was 'with' me for the same reason; although my mind knew that Brad was dead and that I must be imagining his presence in my mind, somehow my heart could not accept that answer, and it was more than content to live in blissful ignorance for the time being


	2. Chapter 2

I was proud of myself the next morning when I woke up without a hangover. Maybe that's saying a bit about how I had lived there for a while after Brad's death. Looking back, sometimes I wonder how I made it through that time at all, much less sane. Well, as sane as one who hears the voice of a dead man can be considered, anyway. 

Farf was gone off to God knows where with that woman from Rosenkreuz, and Nagi had been working for Mamoru for months. Brad had been all I had, and once he was gone I couldn't hold myself together. I had nothing to distract me from the loss. No friends, no job. Schwarz had been my life since I was a teenager. Schwarz had been my friends, family, and livelihood all in one.

Brad had always been there telling me what to do. It sounds pitiful, but once he was gone I was lost. I had no purpose, not even to support myself, thanks to Nagi's computer hacking. He'd set up anonymous accounts for us long ago in case we were even in need of money. With the slow filter he'd set up years ago, I was literally set for life. Not that it seemed that my life would last much longer anyway, the way I had been there for a few months.

During that first week after Brad died, I went back to our apartment and did nothing. When I say nothing, I mean nothing. It was like my brain, including all self-preservation instincts, shut down. I walked in, laid out across the bed, and didn't move for five days.

On the fifth day Nagi showed up. He had seemed angry about something. . . I think he had been calling and I had not answered. I'm not sure. I hadn't heard the phone ring. Then again, I had not heard him banging on the door, either. He had eventually had to bust the lock with his power.

By the time he had gotten there, between my injuries from the fight and me not eating or drinking for five days, I was barely able to move. I had already passed out twice before he got there, and was disappointed both times when I woke up. Every time I felt my mind inching towards that black nothingness I prayed it was the last time.

Nagi took me to a Kritiker facility, where they treated my wounds and malnutrition. I had tried to tell him no, but trying to physically avoid a telekinetic when you haven't eaten for five days isn't exactly easy. By the time they were discussing putting me in the psyche ward, I was well enough to argue my way out of it. I'm a telepath, for God's sake, what good could the psyche ward do me?

I had gone home with the promise that I would eat on a regular basis. I used the money in the account to buy food, but I was soon spending more of it on drugs and alcohol than anything edible. The food couldn't make me forget about Brad. . . of course, neither could the drugs, but they could get me to the point where I just did not care anymore.

Ah, that blissful apathy. Not caring if anyone I had ever loved was alive or dead, not caring if I lived or died. . . I still miss that feeling sometimes. Life is always so much easier when you just don't care. It may not make you happy, but at least it keeps you from feeling that aching sadness that fills every fiber of your being. There's still a distant ache, but once you reach a certain point, you can't remember why it's there.

Nagi stuck me in Rehab centers a couple of times, but I always got inside the doctors' brains and convinced them that I had never had a problem to begin with. As soon as they let me out, I was back on the drugs again. I think I tried everything there is to try, always hoping one would make me forget everything.

The first time I overdosed, it was Nagi once again who stepped in. He came in every few days to check on me, and he just happened to stop by the day I would have died if he had not found me. He had rushed me to the hospital, where they managed to keep me in my miserable existence a little while longer. I was less than grateful to Nagi when he came to visit. He was simply angry that I had allowed myself to get that far gone.

Once again I was admitted into a rehab center, and once again I twisted the doctors' minds so that I was released within hours. Of course, I went straight back to my old ways, immediately searching out something stronger, something more potent and more deadly. After that first overdose, Nagi started coming by to check on me every day. I was resentful of him at the time. Why should he care whether I lived or died? Wasn't that my choice?

I don't even remember the events leading up to the second overdose. I must have found something really strong that time, for me not to even remember buying the stuff. Whatever it was, it landed me in the hospital again, and once again Nagi was at my side, but this time was different. Instead of the pissy mother hen I had grown accustomed to, he was in tears.

Nagi. In tears. Crying. Because of me. Even as I struggled to wake up from whatever it was those doctors had pumped me full of, it was the first thing I was aware of; a dampness on my hand that was being clutched tightly in his under his bowed head.

"Please, Schu," he begged, obviously thinking me still asleep. "Stop this. . . I can't take it anymore. First Farf leaves and then Brad. . . they're not coming back. Brad can't. I love Omi with all my heart but I need you here too! You're all that's left of Schwarz. . . All that's left of my family. I know you miss Brad. . . I do too, but he wouldn't want this! He wouldn't want you to tear yourself apart. He wouldn't want me to have to lay awake every night wondering if the next day I'd find you dead. . ." At that point he couldn't continue and dissolved into sobs.

No matter how badly he was scared or injured, Nagi never cried. In all the years I had known the kid, and practically raised him, I could count on one hand the number of times he had shed even a single tear, and have fingers left over. And now he was sobbing. . . because of me.

I squeezed his hand a bit to get his attention and resorted to mental speech when I found my throat dry from the oxygen tube.

_I'll try, chibi. I can't promise anything else. . . but I'll try._


End file.
